AN: Inspired by Bren Gail's comment in Wild Word Wars on FB, Felena's prompt of an accident, and Classic Erynn's actual boo-boo that needed kissing... I thought I'd share it here, too... Enjoy!
A Very Bad Dream by Kricket Williams
She was easy to recognize. Nobody did "incognito" quite like she did. Wearing huge sunglasses and a trench coat, Penelope Garcia stumbled into the BAU with her head down, carrying a huge glass of coffee and her purse on her arm like an old lady in a bingo parlor.
JJ followed her at a discrete distance and watched as she fumbled with her door and then finally opened it and slunk into her office. A couple of minutes later, she knocked on the door and let herself in when Penelope called, "Come in."
"Hey," she said.
"Oh, hey, Jayje," Garcia said with a smile. "What brings you to my lair at this fine hour?" She was still wearing the dark glasses as she sat behind her desk.
JJ stared at Penelope and raised an eyebrow. "Garcie...are you okay?"
Penelope tipped her head and looked to the side at JJ. "What makes you ask that?"
JJ pointed by her own eyes. "The sunglasses and the fact that you stumbled in here like a wino."
Penelope blanched behind her glasses. "Oh, frack. Did I?"
JJ nodded.
"Did anyone else see?" she asked in a panicky tone of voice.
JJ shook her head. "Nope. It was just me, as far as I know."
She heaved a sigh of relief and sank farther in her chair. "Oh, good. That's...good."
Sometimes, Penelope could be the most frustrating person on the planet. "Garcia, who are you hiding from and why?"
"You asked two questions," Penelope said inanely. "Profilers are supposed to ask one question at a time, right?"
JJ put her hands on her hips and glared at her best girlfriend. "Garcia..."
Penelope winced—or at least, it looked like a wince; her nose wrinkled and her lips pursed. JJ couldn't see her eyes to tell how they reacted.
"Okay, okay," she said and then slowly lowered her glasses, revealing a massive shiner.
JJ sucked in her breath through clenched teeth. "Oooh. What on earth happened?"
Penelope pouted, her full bottom lip sticking out like a petulant five-year-old. "You don't want to know."
"Weren't you going out on a date with Kevin last night?" JJ asked and then asked the impossible (Kevin just was not the violent sort!) with the next comment. "God, Garcia, he didn't—"
"No!" she hissed. "No, good God, no! Ixnay or Organ-May next door will come over and see, and I don't want him to."
Astute and bright woman that she was, JJ put two and two together: Penelope told Morgan about her date, Morgan sees the black eye, Morgan socks Kevin without thinking because he is a protective very hot-headed man.
"What happened, Penelope?" JJ asked, taking a seat across from her distraught friend.
"It's all so complicated." Penelope sighed and then brought her hand up to rub her forehead before wincing and putting her hand back down. "Last night, I went to dinner with Kevin, to try to reconcile what we had."
That surprised her. "I thought you were moving on from that?"
After JJ's wedding, Penelope had pitched quite the fit about Kevin bringing another woman. That seemed to be a very low blow to her, an inexcusable one. She'd cuddled up to Morgan, and things seemed to be flowing between them...but the Morgan/Garcia relationship was a hard to understand one.
She glared. "I'm trying to explain. One question at a time."
JJ put up her hands. "Okay, okay..."
"Anyhow... So I went with him, and as I sat there with my tofu spaghetti, I kept thinking how different things were. It was—" she shuddered "—all wrong."
"How so?"
She sighed again. "Derek kept talking to me about settling for Mr. Wrong, and I wanted to prove that I wasn't, and then it did feel wrong, and Morgan was right...and then I went to bed...and I had the dream."
JJ cringed. "The dream?"
Penelope nodded and gulped.
There was one dream Penelope'd had many times that she'd told JJ about. Whenever she drank, she would go into drunken discussions about "the dream." She gushed about it. Said it was the most exquisite dream she'd ever had. It was heaven. Paradise. Wonderful. It was the strongest, most real dream she'd ever had.
Basically, it was Penelope and Morgan, a bed, sheets, and nothing else.
Of course, after she was done drinking, she denied it, saying it was just a ridiculous dream. She knew better, etc etc. So, for Penelope to admit to it now, while she was sober... This was something.
"And...?" JJ led, trying to get her to talk.
"Oh, Jayje, it was ghastly!" Penelope cried. "I was making love, holding my chocolate dream lover, kissing and caressing. My head was back, and when I opened my eyes to kiss him... It was Urkel!"
JJ's lips quivered, but she didn't dare laugh. "Urkel? From Family Matters?"
Penelope nodded. "I got so upset, I fell out of bed and hit my face on the nightstand!"
"Oh, Garcie!" JJ said, wincing and chuckling at the same time. She couldn't hold it back anymore. "I'm so sorry."
"It was terrible!" Penelope moaned. "Suddenly, the man I'd always dreamed about was replaced...by some geeky dork."
That made JJ blink. Didn't that happen in real life?
Penelope looked at JJ sincerely. "Jayje...what does it all mean?"
At that moment, a knock sounded, and Morgan came in, holding some papers. "Hey, Baby Gi—What the hell happened to you?" He tossed the papers on the desk and hurried over to Garcia, cupping her chin in his hand to inspect her.
"I had a mishap," Garcia said.
Derek began to speak a mile a minute. "Angel, this isn't good. Did you get ice on it right away? What the hell happened? Did you—"
Penelope put her fingers on Derek's lips. "Hush, lover. Wait, JJ—"
JJ had sneaked to the door, but not fast enough. "Bye, you two."
"But...what did you think?" Penelope asked again, a lost look in her big brown eyes.
JJ smiled and then looked between the two of them. "I think it means you should make your original dream come true, Garcia...before it's too late."
Penelope stared at her, and then she began to smile. A second later, she removed her fingers from Derek's lips. "I fell out of bed. It's okay."
"Damn, baby..." he grumbled. "What can I do?"
She smiled seductively at him. "Maybe you can kiss it...and make it all better?"
JJ shut the door as Derek leaned down to apply that much needed kiss. JJ smiled to herself as she walked away; she had a feeling that would be the first kiss of many more to come.
